Month: May 2005

On May 27, 2005, the Fourth Annual Youth and Power event took place at the Veterans Memorial Building in Watsonville. The theme was “Youth Empowerment Through Art, Education, and Music.” About three hundred people, mostly teenagers, enjoyed an evening of music, dancing and great food!

Tomas comments, “…this event will never just come and go. It was about planting seeds of consciousness and revolution in the minds of our young people of Watsonville.I think we accomplished that. Events like ours rarely get attention of the local mainstream press, but let the growers put on some drunkfest like the Strawberry Festival and the press is all over it. No big deal, because our work continues. Thanks Indymedia for covering Youth and Power and thanks to the Watsonville Brown Berets for all the work you do in this community.”

On May 25, 2005, students, teachers and their supporters gathered at the Plaza in Watsonville for an energetic protest against Arnold Schwarzenegger and his neglect for youth and education. The theme of the demonstration was Broken Promises + Broken Schools = Broken Dreams.

The Alliance for a Better California, which is a statewide organization that includes labor unions of educators, public service workers, and service employees, called for an Action Day for a Better California to demonstrate against the governor’s so-called “reforms.” Rallies were also held in Sacramento and Los Angeles.

On May 21 and 22, 2005, the first ever Biofuel Community Conference and Car Show took place at UC Santa Cruz. On Sunday, I headed to UCSC’s North Remote parking lot for the Car Show and came home with some photos.

All vehicles shown in the photos below are powered by BioFuels such as veggie oil, biodiesel or ethanol.

Photos from the Dilated Peoples set at the 26th annual Multicultural Festival which took place in the Quarry Amphitheater at UC Santa Cruz on May 21, 2005.

Many of the ethnic and student organizations at UCSC had tents to provide foods from many different cultural backgrounds. I assume that most of the people who came to the festival were students, but everyone was welcome to attend.

Thank you for tuning in to the May 16, 2005 Indynewswire show on Free Radio Santa Cruz, 101.1 FM, freakradio.org and beyond. This show has been dedicated to Jeff “Free” Luers and the June 10-12 Weekend of Resistance. We hear audio from a documentary about Jeff “Free” Luers and I have a discussion with Dylan, a friend of Free and member of his Defense Network.